


Having Them On

by Ray_Writes



Series: Tumblr Prompts [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Ten is a Lovesick Puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 05:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12226974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Donna wants to try a different strategy when they meet people, but the Doctor's not entirely sure it's a good idea.





	Having Them On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colorofmymind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmymind/gifts).



> This was another prompt by my beta, colorofmymind. There's a brief reference made to the audio story "Pest Control", but no major spoilers for it. Hopefully you all enjoy!

“I have an idea,” Donna announced out of the blue one morning. She'd brought lunch to the console room with her since he was in the middle of a tricky bit of maintenance.

The Doctor poked his head out from underneath the grating. “Brilliant! I love your ideas. What is it?”

“You know how everywhere we go people assume we're a couple?”

The eager smile dropped off his face. “Er, yes?” He should have realized Donna would still be smarting about that after their encounter with Yovich.

“Well, it never seems to work, us telling them that we're not,” she pointed out from her perch on the jump seat. “They just think we're lying or something. But I mean, why would we lie about it?”

“Why indeed?” He managed while ignoring that familiar tightening feeling in his chest. The Doctor retreated back under the grating. He really couldn't leave this task for very long, anyway.

“So it got me thinking — what if we did lie?”

The wire he'd been attempting to gently unplug from the time altimeter ripped out when he jolted in shock, and he received a second electric shock as a result. “Ah!”

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Donna's voice was closer now, and he felt one of her hands land on his knee. His leg twitched involuntarily.

“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “I'm fine. What do you mean ‘what if we did lie’?”

“I mean, what if we agreed when they assume we’re a couple? Well?” She added when he was silent.

“You know what? I’m not fine,” he said. “That shock must have gone through my brain and mixed some signals around because I could  _ not _ have heard you properly.”

“Oh sure. You did hear me, now let me explain, Martian.”

The Doctor set the wires aside for the moment. Whatever Donna had to say seemed likely to incur further injury if he split his attention.

“Whenever we go somewhere and tell people we're not a couple, they never believe us. Like they think we're having them on. So, I'm thinking, what if we  _ did _ have them on? We pretend we're a couple, but it's so fake they totally see right through it.”

“Fake,” he echoed.

“Yeah,” said Donna. “You know, pet names and hanging off each other and talking the other one up all the time. Just real obnoxious.”

To the Doctor's mind, referring to Donna with terms of endearment, being physically close, and praising her to others did not sound obnoxious at all. It sounded lovely. But Donna couldn't know that.

“Right, obnoxious,” he agreed.

“It's not a good idea, is it?”

Shifting slightly to the left allowed him a glimpse of Donna through the grating. She was still knelt beside him but had taken her hand away from his knee. Drawing herself away.

“It's—” The Doctor struggled with what to say; he didn't want to deal a blow to her self-confidence, but it  _ wasn't  _ a good idea if only due to his own failings.

He was already pretending not to be in love with Donna Noble. He wasn't sure even he could pull off pretending to date her to pretend he didn't want to date her.

“— worth a shot, I suppose,” he settled for, supportive if not actively encouraging. The smile it brought to Donna's face was worth it alone.

“Okay.” She patted his leg again before standing. “Finish up down there and pick some place for us to try it out. I'm gonna take these dishes back and freshen up. You sure you don't want any?”

“Nah, not hungry.” He certainly wasn't now what with the series of anatomically impossible flip flops his stomach was currently performing. “But stop by the wardrobe on your way back. The TARDIS should help you find something suitable.”

“Why, where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” was all he said. He heard Donna’s huff and smiled to himself as her footsteps faded down the corridor. Then he jammed the wires back into place and shimmied out from under the grating. The Doctor threw the first switch necessary to take them out of the Vortex and leaned in close to the Time Rotor. “Please, please, please, please,  _ please _ for once go where I ask.”

This was his one shot, his one chance to even get a taste of what a world beyond “just mates” was. It had to be big, it had to be grand, and, most importantly, it had to be something Donna would love. Something he could look back on fondly, even if the memory of it might hurt just as much.

To his satisfaction, when he bounded down the ramp to check after landing, he found they’d parked right where he’d meant to. “Thank you,” he muttered, patting a coral strut.

“Spaceman, I’m telling you right now—” Donna’s voice, as well as the clacking of heels, preceded her reentry. “If you open those doors and we’re on some jungle planet, I am staying put today. There is no way I am letting you ruin a dress this nice.”

He turned around and felt all the air leave him in a rush. Donna was wearing a deep blue evening gown that reached nearly to her toes. Something was inlaid in the fabric that allowed it to shimmer slightly even in the dim light of the console room. The sleeves were resting off her shoulders and that combined with the low neckline was affording him an unhindered view the likes of which he’d not had since her failed wedding. The Doctor dragged his gaze up to focus instead on the way she'd swept her hair back into some intricate looking affair, just one or two wisps escaping to curl at the base of her neck — and that was not focusing, or at least not the way he'd meant to.

“The TARDIS picked that out?” He asked, needing to distract himself with something.

Donna shrugged, which was in itself distracting, but again, not the way he needed right now. “It was hanging in front of the mirror. Seemed as good a sign as any.”

Trust the Old Girl to always find some way of conspiring against him. Though he supposed that wasn't fair; the TARDIS could have given Donna a brown paper sack to wear, and he would still find her distracting simply because she was Donna.

“I am dressed right for where we’re going, right?” She checked. “I mean, what's that look about? Is it really a space jungle out there?”

“Uh, no,” said the Doctor, coming back to himself. “No space jungle. But why take my word for it?” He went back down the ramp and held the door open for her. Donna passed him with a bemused sort of smile, but that quickly morphed into a look of surprise and wonder.

He couldn't blame her, having parked them just beside the door to the cargo hold, which afforded them a slightly out of the way view of a marble tiled lobby with large windows on either side displaying the stars they were currently drifting past. A multitude of guests in glittering gowns and dashing tuxedos were proceeding through a door nearly twenty feet high leading to a brightly lit ballroom. Music and the occasional burst of laughter or the clinking of glass on glass was already spilling out into the lobby.

“It’s a Starliner,” he answered her unspoken question. “Built to travel between planets, between galaxies even, with every luxury and amenity money can buy. This is right at the height of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.”

“You’d think they'd have decided the name was bad luck after the third time,” she said, voice fainter than usual, but the Doctor still found himself smirking at her quip.

“You’d think.”

They stepped out of the TARDIS together, and once he'd locked it behind them, Donna looped her arm through his. She was too captivated by everything around them to notice the glances he kept sneaking, which he felt guilty about but couldn’t seem to help. Did she even know how lovely she was? Even stuck on the arm of someone like him.

As if reading his mind, Donna rose up on her toes to mutter in his ear, “You know you're underdressed,” causing him to shiver as they approached the crowd.

He looked down at his suit. “Shouldn't be too much of a problem. A bit of fun’s all we’re here for. We’ll be long gone before they realize they’ve two extra passengers they don't have a room for.” He met Donna’s sharp look and quickly added, “Or...anything else.”

They got in line to enter and spent a few short minutes chatting with the couple ahead of them. The two gentlemen, one a retired schoolteacher and the other an engineer, were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary paid for by their grandchildren and had never taken so much as a sea cruise before. He and Donna offered them both a hearty congratulations just as they cleared the threshold.

“You’ve cleaned up real nice. Very classy,” Donna assured them with a warm smile. Then she bumped his shoulder. “Not like this one.”

They all shared a laugh, even if it was at his expense.

“Oh, well thank you!” Said the retired teacher, taking a brown, weathered, and trembling hand off his cane to shake hands with them each in turn. “And enjoy your honeymoon.”

Donna’s smile froze a bit while the Doctor tugged at his ear uncomfortably. The other two were already moving off across the floor, and it seemed rather futile to call them back just for a correction or to get them to guess at their charade.

“We, er, we weren’t trying just yet, were we?” He said eventually, keeping his eyes on Donna’s toes, or at least the ones that poked out at the front of her heels.

“Right,” she agreed quickly. “So that one didn’t count.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, looking away. “Oh, here comes another chance. I think that might be the hostess.” He nodded to a woman in a sequined gown and furs standing in the center of the room and surrounded by various guests, all chattering loudly. “Think we should introduce ourselves?”

“Long as it doesn’t end with us getting thrown in the brig,” Donna replied, but she was already tugging him over the way he’d observed one or two women do to their various significant others. “What’s her name?”

“Olympe D'anneaux. A titan in the—”

“Alright, I don’t need her life story, Spaceman. Olympe!” She called out.

The older woman turned with a smile that was amazingly faker than Donna’s. “Oh, my dear, how good of you to make it! And I see you’ve brought your man.”

Donna patted his arm with the hand that wasn’t already holding his. “Yes, I did.”

“Have you met Conrad? He’s an investor for the Thirty-Three Fifth’s Bank.”

Conrad turned out to be the tall, broad-shouldered man to the right of their hostess, the type of man Donna normally drooled over. Predictably, she extended her hand with shining eyes. “Donna Noble.”

“Charmed,” said Conrad the investor, taking Donna’s hand and kissing the back of it. The Doctor scowled, which unfortunately did not go missed by Olympe.

“Conrad, you rascal,” she laughed. “Mr. Noble standing right there and everything!”

The Doctor blanched.

“No, we’re not married—” His trained response was cut off by Donna of all people and not to agree with him.

“Yet! Not married yet. I try not to nag him, but I know for a fact he's got a ring.” Donna turned a too-bright smile his way. Right, the ruse. “Any plans you want to share, sweetheart?”

This was probably the bit where he was meant to act ludicrously over enthusiastic, showing off how strange this all was and causing the others to guess this was all some silly act so that next thing he knew Donna would be going off with Conrad for a quiet few moments alone. He didn’t much fancy any of that.

“I was thinking Christmas,” the Doctor said, staring right at her. “Seeing as it's an anniversary of sorts for us.” He watched her eyes widen, and the slightest pink blush rise in her cheeks.

“Oh, how romantic!” Their hostess exclaimed, clasping her hands together.

“Well, you’ll have to pull out all the stops now she's expecting it,” said Conrad, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder.

“Only the best for my Donna,” he agreed readily, baring his teeth in a grin. “Speaking of, would you like a drink, darling?”

“Er, yeah, you know what I like,” said Donna, watching him as he left.

The Doctor ordered for the both of them at the bar, needing something for his nerves or whatever it was that had him nearly blowing everything. He knew they weren't really together, and therefore Donna was at perfect liberty to fancy whoever she liked. She might even leave him someday for the sake of some fellow she fancied; she wouldn't be the first.

For the first time, however, he had a terrible feeling he wouldn't have the good grace to let her go without making a fool of himself.

Scarcely had their drinks been placed down then did Donna appear at his side. “Thought you were catching up with Olympe,” he said.

Donna scoffed, and the Doctor smirked behind the rim of his glass. “Yeah, didn't really feel like being alone with Ms. Stepford and her cronies.” She accepted her drink with a nod in thanks, then turned and braced her elbows back on the bar to observe the party going on around them, the sleeves of her dress sagging further down her arms. The engineer they’d made friends with on their way in spotted them across the room, and Donna waved to the older man and his husband while sliding a little closer to him. The Doctor twitched his fingers and brushed the silk of her gown, then made a mental game of finding patterns in the freckles on her shoulders.

“How come wealthy people always want to show off to other people? Even people they don't like,” Donna pondered aloud. “Suppose that’d be more showing up, then.”

He shrugged. “Never changes. Why do you like to show up Nerys?”

“Oi.”

The warning signal. He’d let his mouth run away from him, hadn't he? The Doctor tore his gaze from the speckled sunflower he’d been drawing in his mind’s eye to meet her stern look. “What I meant was, I suppose people don't like other people to make assumptions or think poorly of them. So they show off the best of what they've got and sweep all the rest of it under the rug. Take Ms. D’anneaux, for example.”

Donna looked over at the woman who was now leading her entourage off the main floor to make room for those wishing to dance to the orchestra. “Why? What about her?”

“Well, she's just disowned her daughter for running off with a Qu’larken girl. The humans and Qu’larkens are in a terrible feud in this time. Mother and daughter will never see each other again.” He pointed out Conrad next. “And I suspect your friend is making such a personal investment in the cheap champagne because his bank is about to fail. One of the worst bankruptcies of the century.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yes. Everyone’s got a secret, some pretense they're hiding behind.” He lifted his eyes to the opulent chandelier hanging above them. “Particularly in a place like this.”

“What about the couple we were talking with? Those nice men, they couldn’t have something to hide,” she insisted.

The Doctor said nothing for a long time, until Donna's stare grew so insistent as to be unbearable. “He’s sick. The teacher, the one who shook our hands. This could be an anniversary gift, could also be one last night on the town.”

At his words, Donna's look turned to dismay. “He’s dying. They're gonna lose each other?”

He inclined his head. “Eventually. But here for one night, they can forget about all that and dance their cares away.” He turned from the glitz and glamor to Donna who was watching it all with a frown.

“Everyone here's lying to everyone else and themselves.”

“Especially themselves.” He placed his finished drink on the counter and held out a hand to her. “Shall we?”

Donna lost the frown to instead blink in utter confusion. “Sorry, what?”

His hand continued to hang in the air between them. “You like dancing, don't you? I’ve seen you.”

“Well I’ve never seen you. I didn't even know if you  _ could _ dance.” Despite the wary tone, she placed her hand in his and let him lead them out to where other couples already swayed to the music.

“Well there we are. Should be suitably obnoxious, then.”

They were already holding hands, so he simply laced his fingers through hers and placed the other hand high on her waist, only meeting her eyes as the first beats of the song started up.

He was admittedly a little rusty at this. It had been a while since Reinnette’s lessons at Versailles, and he hadn't exactly been keeping up with practice. Donna was fortunately rather good at leading; he could picture her steering many a man about the floor, those boys Wilf had said she'd seen one after the other.

“What are you grinning about?” Donna peered up at him.

“What's not to grin about?” He countered instead.

Tonight was his night, for better or worse, and whether or not Donna found someone she could actually love in a year or tomorrow had no bearing on now. The future couldn't touch them just yet; fretting about it only squandered the present.

The song they had been dancing to changed to something a little more upbeat, and a few more couples came out onto the floor, particularly young ones.

Donna looked around at the steps they were doing. “I don't know this one.”

“That's to be expected. We are thousands of years in your future,” he reminded.

“Do you know it?”

“Nope. We’ll just have to make it up as we go along.”

“Oh, so the usual strategy then?” She asked. The Doctor laughed and swung them about to get them moving.

They gained a reputation pretty quickly by the wide berth other dancers seemed to be giving them, but that just encouraged him to spin Donna out of his arms and back in again whenever the whim struck him, which was often as he enjoyed the way her dress fanned out around her ankles, and her eyes sparkled in sheer delight.

“You’re making me dizzy,” she gasped, leaning heavily against his shoulder as they swayed for a few beats.

“Having fun though?” Donna nodded, which he felt as well as saw. “I promise not to let you fall.”

His hand had slipped a few dangerous inches lower to her hip, but Donna either hadn't noticed or couldn't be bothered just yet. Her own hand was resting at the back of his neck, fingers threading through the hairs there. He didn't know if that was just meant to be another part of the act, but if he closed his eyes he could pretend it wasn't.

The tempo began to pick up again. “What's our big finale?” Donna asked, raising her head from his shoulder and flowing seamlessly into another spin.

He pulled her back a little too close; her hand landed on his chest. “Well, remember how I said no falling?”

“Yeah?”

He grinned, his own hand shifting to her back in preparation. “You ready?”

Donna's eyes went wide. “Don't you dare. Martian, don't you dare!”

He dipped her anyway. Her laughter and the way she clung to him seemed to call her warning into question, but he was too busy laughing himself to remark upon it.

Donna's cheeks were flushed, and her chest heaved as she smiled up at him. The pins or whatever she'd done to her hair had come loose, and now it spilled almost to the floor in ginger waves.

He was breathless and not from the dancing. His tongue darted out to wet dry lips, and something in Donna's look shifted. Still smiling, still warm, but somehow more intense than before. It drew him in.

The Doctor pulled them upright, his arm still flush against her back — and there was no space between them as suddenly Donna's face was right in front of his, her heels aiding her as well as the fact his head seemed to be tilting down towards hers. Before he could stop himself, before he could think it through, he was kissing her.

Her lips were soft. He’d noticed that before, when she’d kissed him, and he'd been too shocked to remember he was dying. And they were warm, too. Everything about Donna was warm. He loved that about her. He loved this. He loved  _ her _ .

The Doctor stilled, lips hovering just a breath away from hers. At some point, his eyes had closed, and he didn't dare open them. He didn't think he could bear the shock — or worse, the accusation — that was bound to be in Donna's eyes.

“Need some space,” he stammered, pulling away and pulled on as Donna's clenched hands in his collar were dislodged by his abrupt exit. He left her on the dance floor in that ballroom and kept walking right out through a side door.

The star decks that ringed the ship truly were a remarkable feat of engineering. Reinforced one-way glass allowed the passengers an unobstructed yet private view of the stars while temperature-controlled air was regularly cycled in. Still not quite fresh, though. The Doctor loosened his tie and gripped the railing of the observation deck hard enough that his knuckles turned bleach white.

Any odd behavior tonight, anything that seemed just a little outside the normal bounds could have been explained away as him trying to play the role she had assigned him. But that had been a step too far. He had no idea how he'd make excuses now, that was if Donna would even forgive him long enough to hear them.

The door opened, and the Doctor hung his head; he had a feeling he knew who it was.

“Hey, Spaceman,” Donna called, voice soft.

“Hey.”

She walked up to his side again. “How's space?”

“Good. It's good. You see that star there?” He pointed to one particularly bright speck. “It's not even a part of this galaxy, but it's the brightest star in the sky of every planet that  _ is _ in this galaxy. Isn't that brilliant? One tiny little star making itself seen across the cosmos.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, but it wasn't as bright as usual. “Listen, Doctor, I just wanted to say—”

“Donna, about what happened in there—” he began with no plan of how that sentence would end.

“I’m sorry,” they said together.

The Doctor leaned back. “What?”

Donna's eyes narrowed. “Hang on, why are  _ you  _ sorry?”

He stared. “I...kissed you?” Saying it out loud only solidified how real and insurmountable and foolish an action it had been in his mind, and he winced in preparation of the deserved slap that was no doubt coming.

“Right, and I get because it was my stupid idea,” Donna said instead, then sighed. “I thought if I could just prove to myself how ridiculous we would be as a couple, I could stop thinking about it. Wondering.”

His voice felt stuck in his throat. Still, he managed to ask, “Wondering?”

“Yeah.”

He was frozen in a moment of time, afraid to act one way or the other.

“I think I know why we make such a rubbish fake couple.” Donna slowly turned her face from the vast vista above and before them. “It's cause we're a real one, aren't we?”

The Doctor swallowed once. “How do you figure that?”

“Everyone’s lying, especially to themselves,” she echoed.

He smiled, head ducked. “Oh. Very nice.” Trust Donna to see right through his own hypocrisy.

When he glanced at her, she was smiling as well, lips pressed together as if to keep herself from doing so too much. It was then he thought he finally processed what it was Donna had been trying to tell him since coming out here. She had always been trying to hide how pleased she was with him.

“I suppose we’ve just been having ourselves on this whole time,” he remarked which got a nod from her. “So, if we're agreed on that,” he began, somewhat faltering. This was entirely new ground for them, after all, and considering the rather explosive nature of their first negotiation, it was best to proceed with caution. “What happened in there was...good?”

She tilted her head in consideration. “Yeah, well, you took me for drinks and dancing first. I’d say we're there. Not like we haven't kissed before.”

“Very true,” he agreed. “So no objections to kissing?”

“No — well, apart from the bit where you ran out on me in the middle of it.”

The Doctor grimaced. “Your critique is noted.”

Donna was grinning now, her eyes sparkling with the pinpricks of reflected stars. “Just wait. There’ll be more of those.”

“Oh, I bet there will be.”

“Shall I write them down for you?”

“I think I can manage. Though—” he wet his lips and debated how daring he was feeling; Donna before him in a beautiful dress, the feel of her mouth against his still fresh in his mind, he thought he might be capable of anything. “—might require some practical experience to get it all down.”

“I’m sure,” she replied with a roll of her eyes, but she obliged him with a step into his space.

“Never underestimate the importance of field work, Donna.” The Doctor's touch was light as he first brushed her cheek with his thumb, then cupped the back of her head and let his fingers comb through her hair. He didn't know which she liked better yet; he didn't know which  _ he  _ liked better, only that he liked it all.

Donna was remaining remarkably patient throughout all of this, leaning into his hand and watching him through hooded eyes. It was a look quite similar to the one she'd worn in the ballroom just before he kissed her. Perhaps there was some predictive behavior to all this, because kiss her was precisely what he proceeded to do.

Donna's lips were just as warm and soft, but this time they moved against his with an eagerness that had him staggering back into the railing. Her eyes were closed, and he had trouble keeping his own open in order to watch her rather than simply lose himself in the moment. He lost that battle with a groan when she pressed in closer and let go of his shoulders to bury her hands in his hair.

There was something all consuming about being kissed by Donna Noble, though he'd known that ever since the 1920s. “I was right before,” the Doctor mumbled. “Really must do this more often.”

Donna snorted. “Knew it. Meant the detox, my arse.” She tilted her head back as he began nosing along her jawline, searching for a hum or a hitch in her breath that might indicate further experimentation. His Donna, bathed in starlight and stroking his hair. He wasn't sure his hearts could take it.

“This must be an alternate timeline,” he said between light kisses he trailed along the the same path. There was a spot behind her ear that was shaping up to be promising. “You haven't taken temporary leave of your senses, have you? Not an android in disguise sent to incapacitate me?”

“Why would you think that?” Asked Donna, her voice much breathier than usual.

“It's just you’ve seemed very adamant about not being interested.” Could she really blame him for wanting reassurance?

“Well I wasn't gonna be caught out fancying you if you didn't fancy me.  _ You're _ the one who started all that ‘just mates’ business.”

The Doctor paused. “You’re right. I must have been out of my head that night.”

“You’re always out of your head, Martian,” Donna reminded him.

He smiled into the curve of her neck. “Oh yeah.”

The doors banged open again, and they jumped apart to see a young couple stopped short just on the threshold.

“Oh, excuse us,” one of them began.

“That's okay, we're not—”

“We weren't—”

The Doctor and Donna stopped at the same time and looked at each other. They really were going to have to work on that reflex.

“Actually, you know what?” Said the Doctor, wrapping an arm around Donna’s waist. “We are and we were, so if you wouldn't mind finding your own deck, that'd be lovely.”

“Er, alright.” They were very quickly left alone.

Donna pushed him away and let out a laugh. “I can't believe you just did that! We're gonna be the talk of the party now.”

“Oh, let them.” He didn't mind what anyone had to say about him and Donna, not when all that talk had led them right here.

She looked away, smiling, and he had a feeling she was thinking much the same thing. “Seriously, who were we fooling?”

He drew her back into his arms; now that he knew he could, he couldn't stand her being anywhere else. “No one. No one at all.”


End file.
